Around the World in 80 Books: Persia

Welcome to the next installment in my Around the World in 80 Books Challenge! It’s exactly what it sounds like: I’m trying to read 80 books from 80 different countries/cultures around the world, and to add a frugal spin, I’m trying to do it all for under $20.

And, yes, I realize Persia is no longer an empire in so many words, but Rumi lived across the Middle East throughout his life, and most of that was in Persia in the 1200s. Konya, which is now in Turkey and is where he wrote the vast majority of his works, may have been in the Byzantine Empire, technically. I’m not 100% on that.

So I thought I’d pick up a collection and give the holistic experience another shot.

I was left surprised. Love is My Savior is the first of Rumi’s Arabic works to be translated into English. Rumi bounced between four languages to express himself in different ways. Arabic provided some great opportunities for poetic license, and was often intertwined with Persian–the language in which he wrote most of his poems.

While I’m used to Rumi talking about love in erotic analogies, measuring one type of love just as great as another, what I’m not used to is him talking about heartbreak.

This book pulls largely from Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, named for his spiritual mentor, Shams. Shams and Rumi were crazy close, delving into the mystical aspects of Islam together, and perhaps loving each other in the way some of the more erotic poetry suggests. In the 1200s, when Rumi lived, there weren’t really as many prescribed lines surrounding sexuality. Heteronormativity was much weaker.

I did enjoy the book, but I have to admit, reading Rumi’s writings on heartbreak was…a little heartbreaking. I’m used to his words lifting me up and enlightening me. I’m used to reading about absorbing and producing love wherever we can find the means to do so. So it was discombobulating to read words that focused so strongly on his attachment to Shams, and the gut-wrenching pain he endured because of it.

Eventually, he learned to find an extension of that same love with his students. By working with them, he was connecting to the current of love that had flowed between him and Shams. The pure love of enlightenment.

But most of this book is a lament.

I didn’t hate it. Rumi is brilliant regardless of his mood. It just wasn’t what I was expecting. Here are some of the lines that particularly struck me:

Destroyed by your troubles, how you grieve and sigh…
By God! Listen to my proclamation!
He knows who caused your mind’s devastation.
From abasement, your soul will always rise.
You’ve abandoned all for love’s enterprise.
Be still. God is your helper. He’s the prize.
-From “Banner of Love”

My lover is a whale, and my desire
pure water–an ocean–with no end time.
Can a whale grow bored in a pure ocean?
-From “He’s Never Bored with Love”

Were you a lightning bolt or just a ball of flame?
You left me with no home here, all the same.
I worship you, but drunk I here remain.
Is that your grace, or is it my soul’s stain?
If I repent my sin, that’s sin…and shame.
If love is my savior, so when will I be saved?
Now reason shouts at me: “No! Don’t step off
the righteous path or it will be your grave!”
But isn’t death the only thing I crave?
-Love Is My Savior

Look! Our love shines on, past earth and heaven!
The days have kept our bodies far apart,
I swear by God, my heart is still with you.
My heart is tender when my love is new,
sad and grieving when lovers must part.
My heart sends you my messages of love–
no end. But I’m still thirsty! What to do?
My soul returns to the places I saw you.
Can I repent the sin of love this true?
-From “I Climbed to Heaven”

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